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Tragic trend of drinking and driving

After the recent passing of Michael Collins, this campus has come together and done some incredible things, like the fundraiser to help his parents pay his medical bills. Although campus seemed a little dreary after the news arrived of his death, ISU has come together beautifully in the face of tragedy.

With that being said, this Editorial Board has noticed the spike in drunk driving incidents at Illinois State University. Why do we always have to learn the hard way? This is 2014, people should not have to be reminded of the dangers of drinking and driving.

The complete selfishness of drinking and driving seems to be lost behind the dangers of it. Getting behind the wheel after a night of drinking puts yourself and innocent people in danger. People say, “I’ll be fine. I am a great drunk driver.” What about the other car if an accident does occur? There are numerous cases where the drunk driver remains unscathed after an accident, and the innocent are severely injured. The innocent should be the primary reason to refrain from drunk driving. It’s one thing to endanger just your own well-being, but when others are involved, it becomes evident how selfish drunk driving really is.

To quote Louis C.K, “you need to be compassionate [when driving], because you are in a weapon amongst weapons.” For some reason, driving a motor vehicle is not taken seriously in today’s society. It is a space where everyone feels quite comfortable, and the dangers are overlooked. Just like numerous things in today’s society, driving is taken for granted. We view it as a common way to get from point A to point B, without thinking of the repercussions of operating a vehicle poorly.

We have heard all our lives to refrain from drinking and driving, yet people still do it. Realistically, everyone probably understands the dangers of drunk driving, but these people cannot envision anything bad happening to them. They are untouchable, impervious to drunk driving accidents. Why do we drink and drive even after all the education and empirical evidence we have about the dangers of doing so? We can’t be such a selfish society to the point where we don’t care about others’ well-being on the road, can we? The concept of humans primarily operating within their own self-interests has been debated by sociologists and psychologists for years, and drunk driving accidents like the one that took Collin’s life could be used as evidence to support such theory. Why else would one choose to drink and drive?

Selfish reasons can, logically, be the only motivating factor. One does not want to abandon his/her car, or he or she does not have money for a cab so instead of walking, he or she feels the need to drive home, etc.

These articles would not be necessary if people took the initiative to refrain from drinking and driving. We have heard about the dangers of drinking and driving 1000 times, and this
Editorial Board should not feel the need to reproduce another article in regards to this particular topic. Yet, tragedies like this happen, and something needs to be written.

So, here it is for the 1001st time: Don’t put your keys into the ignition with alcohol in your system.